[extropy-chat] Three-quarters of N. American's support stem cell research

[J. Andrew Rogers]

> It makes me angry that the only way to advance science in this country 
> is to wed it to the schmaltz and emotionalism surrounding the death of 
> a president.


The only way to advance science in any country is to do it yourself.  
It is a political issue in the US primarily because of the quantity of 
money actually spent on research; most countries have a negligible 
budget for this type of thing and therefore it isn't nearly as much of 
a political football.  The only thing that arguably makes the US unique 
is the sheer quantity of private research funding there is.

It isn't like the government is banning research, they simply aren't 
allowing federal money to be spent on it.  There is a hell of a lot of 
private research money, most of which is far better spent anyway.

More poignantly, stem cell research isn't the only valuable area of 
research that the government has largely chosen not to fund over the 
decades, whether by written or unwritten policy.  People just make a 
lot of noise when it is *their* pet research project that gets gored by 
the usual political process.  I have limited sympathy for people who 
want the government to fund research and then get upset when the 
politicians decide it won't spend money on the research they want.  
That was part of the deal, and always has been.

j. andrew rogers